Planning for Balance
“There are dreamers and there are planners; the planners make their dreams come true.”
-Edwin Louis Cole
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Planning for Balance
If you’ve been following my blog, you will not be surprised that I believe achieving an elegantly balanced life takes intentional action. Many of us are trying to find our ideal balance between diametrically opposed roles (e.g., employee and wife/mother). I love what Nigel Marsh points out in his TEDTalk, “How to make work-life balance work”. Although there are some organizations who demonstrate care for their employees’ work-life balance, the main goal of your organization is to get as much productivity out of you as possible. This doesn’t mean that you work for a bad organization; making money, which necessitates employee productivity, is simply the goal of an organization. As such, your work-life balance is not your organization’s primary goal or concern. Yes, it’s great to work for an organization that values family and provides family-friendly benefits but you can’t leave it up to your work to define what your work-life balance will look like; and if you do, you might not like their idea of balance. Instead, you have to take intentional action to achieve your ideal work-life balance.
In last week’s post, Elegant Balance Foundations, I talked about work-family conflict. We discussed the causes, the consequences, and some actions you can do to address it. If you haven’t checked it out, be sure to go back and read it because today’s post builds upon the practical steps we discussed there. Today, I want to cover another strategy that helps me achieve my elegant balance – weekly planning.
Weekly planning is not a brand-new topic. I didn’t invent it, and you could probably find several other blog posts or podcast episodes that cover it in one way or another. However, over the years I have homed in on the weekly planning ritual that works best for me and I wanted to share. So whether you are an avid weekly planner already or this concept is completely new to you, I hope that you will walk away with some new tools in your toolbelt that you can use to achieve your elegantly balanced life. By engaging in a weekly planning exercise you are able to take control of your schedule and plan for a balanced life instead of just hoping it will happen to you and then be stuck wondering why you always feel so overwhelmed.
Last week we learned to eliminate the non-urgent and non-important demands from your list of responsibilities. Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to intentionally plan for a balanced week. I’ve broken down my weekly planning routine into 7 steps and am going to walk you through them now. Remember, this is my practice. Your’s might look different, and that’s okay. The main goal is that you are being intentional about pursuing work-life balance. Not just hoping it will happen.
Seven Steps of Weekly Planning
Step 1:
Pick a day to practice your weekly planning. Mine is usually Sunday afternoons or first thing Monday morning. I think Sunday works best, but it really depends on your work schedule and what would make the most sense for you. I’ve even heard of people doing it on Fridays in preparation for the weekend. It doesn’t matter when you do it, as long as you take time to do it each week. My weekly planning exercise usually takes 15-20 minutes. At first, it might take you a bit longer but over time you will start to see a lot of patterns in your week and planning things out will get easier and easier.
Step 2:
If you’re married, go grab your spouse. It can be helpful to complete these first few steps along with them. That way everyone is on the same page for the upcoming week and you can avoid surprises, miscommunication, and conflict later in the week.
Step 3:
Get out your preferred planner/calendar. When I do this, I usually use a combination of my iPhone calendar and a pen and paper planner. I like the phone calendar to block off specific times. Also, on my phone, my husband and I have a shared google calendar where we can add events so that the other person can see it. This is a big help when trying to juggle everyone’s weekly events and ensures that we’re on the same page throughout the week (and that the kids get to and from where they need to be). I prefer the pen and paper planner to write out some of the more detailed to-do lists for my week. If you don’t have a planner, I have created a “Weekly Planning” template. It is included in my free Elegant Balance Workbook. You can find it here.
Step 4:
Start by identifying all the appointments and meetings that you have throughout the week. These are all the activities that must be done at a certain time and place. List out your own and put them in your phone calendar. Then have your spouse do the same. If you have kids, list their appointments last. Now that you have your and your spouse’s set schedule, you can negotiate who is available to help take care of the kids’ appointments.
Step 5:
Next, we shift gears from appointments to our weekly goals. These are the activities that you need to accomplish at some point this week, but that don’t require a set time or place. It’s helpful to do a “brain dump”, where you list out ALL the things your brain is telling you that you need to do this week. Once you’ve done that, take a look at the list and a look at your calendar that you set up in Step 4. Now ask yourself, 1) What are my priorities this week? and 2) What can I realistically accomplish? In my experience, we often want to accomplish everything and so we keep everything on our to-do list. However, I have found that this just creates unnecessary pressure to do everything, stress, and guilt over not being able to get it all done. Don’t do that to yourself! Pick the most important and most urgent items off the list. If they are bigger projects, then 2-3 items should be more than enough for the week.
For example, writing a research paper is one of my goals this week. However, this is a BIG goal and not something that I can accomplish in a few hours one day. Thus, I made sure that my other goal this week was a smaller one. Specifically, ordering my children’s Christmas gifts. See how the first goal is something that will take all week long, but the second one is probably something that I could do in an evening? Like I said before, don’t set yourself up for failure. Not everything has to be done right away. Some weeks will have more space than others and that’s okay!
Once I’ve identified my top goal(s) for the week, I like to write them at the top of the page in my weekly planner. Some planners even conveniently have a spot to write weekly goals. Putting them front and center will help you remember what you’re focused on this week.
Step 6:
The next step is to break down your weekly goals into bite-sized, manageable tasks. Going with my previous example of writing a research paper, I would list out all the different steps I need to take to get the paper where I want it to be by the end of the week. These might include 1) reading through the manuscript draft, 2) editing the introduction, 3) editing the body of the text, 4) editing the conclusion, 5) formatting the references. For my second goal this week, my list might include 1) list out gifts for each child and 2) order them online.
Step 7:
Okay, let’s pull everything together. You’ve already blocked off the non-negotiable time in Step 4. Now you need to schedule the tasks that you listed out in Step 6 around those non-negotiables. I know I’ve said it before but remember not to over-schedule yourself. Don’t add 10 tasks between school drop-off and lunch unless you can actually accomplish them. I have learned that 2-3 tasks per day is usually ideal. It might take some practice, but eventually you will have a good grasp on your bandwidth each day.
These seven steps present the process of weekly planning. However, there are a few things I want to make sure that you keep in mind as you go through this exercise.
Don’t be afraid of some white space.
If you’ve gone through the exercise and followed my directions to keep each day’s tasks to 2-3, you might feel like your planner looks empty. That is okay! In fact, it’s a good thing to leave some breathing room in your schedule. If I’ve learned anything over the last few years as a working wife and mom, it is that something will inevitably come up. If you allow for some space in your week up front, you will be able to absorb these surprises with ease and elegance.
Include self-care activities in the non-negotiables.
As women, we are often so focused on meeting everyone else’s demands – our supervisors, spouses, children, friends – that we fail to make time for ourselves. I firmly believe that if you want to care for others well and be the best mom, wife, employee, and friend you can, you must make taking care of yourself a priority! I’ve not always done this. I’ve said it before, the messages I share in these podcast episodes/blog posts are just as much for me as they are for you – we are pursuing an elegant balance together! I don’t know if it was the pandemic, the fact that I’m now firmly in my 30’s, or a mid-life crisis, but in the last 6 months I have started practicing prioritizing myself. Friends, it had been two years since I committed to regular workouts and healthy nutrition. I have a 2-year-old daughter… so you can guess why that is!
All that to say, when you’re going through this weekly planning exercise include your top self-care practices in the non-negotiables in Step 4. Let’s get intentional about caring for ourselves! Want to establish a morning routine? Put it on your calendar. My family knows that between 4:30 am and 6:30 am I am going to be drinking coffee, listening to jazz music, reading my Bible, and journaling. Want to start working out more? Schedule it. Want to stay connected with friends? Put that midday coffee-date on your schedule. Want a relaxing evening routine that involves a bubble bath, candles, and a good book? Schedule it! If we don’t plan for these things, it is easy to feel like we don’t have the time for them. But when you schedule them in, you can enjoy these self-care practices without guilt because you know that you have time for them; because you planned for them.
Take things one step further.
When I ask women what they struggle with regarding work-life balance, several of them will mention meal-prep. Although I could probably do an entire podcast episode/blog post solely devoted to my weekly meal-prep routine, I wanted to at least mention it here. I like to combine my weekly planning with weekly prep. Each Sunday afternoon, in addition to planning out my calendar for the week, I also plan out meals for each night of the week, make a grocery list, and go grocery shopping. When I get home, I pack my son’s lunches for the week, and pre-prep any meals I can as I unload the groceries. I know this might sound like a lot, but it actually goes much quicker than you might think. Further, a few hours invested up front helps me plan for balance throughout the week.
Elevate your weekly planning session.
I hope this exercise has been helpful and not overwhelming. Please know that I recognize that weekly planning isn’t exactly a fun activity. I think the reason I love it so much though is that it allows me to intentionally plan for balance throughout the week – not just wait and see if balance is going to happen. Knowledge is power, my friends.
I’m always looking for ways to make things more enjoyable; ways to incorporate more elegance and beauty into my life. One way I do this is to light a candle, grab a warm cup of coffee or glass of wine (depending on what time of day it is), and turn on some of your favorite music. Another way to make this exercise more enjoyable is to treat yourself to a beautiful planner or calendar; one that you enjoy writing in. These seem like simple things, but elegance is truly found in simplicity and by elevating small aspects of our daily routines we can create more elegance and beauty in our lives.